My daily fight with my mother of the Iron Giantess

New Weekly

2024-05-16 11:03Posted on the official account of Guangdong New Weekly

Written by Liu Chezai

Edit| Felicia

Photo provided by the interviewee

There is a creature called a tapir.

It is a Japanese dream eater, and whenever you have a nightmare, people say, "Give this dream to the tapir to eat, as if you can stay away from this dream." Maybe it's because the tapir looks too weird, with a body like a bear, a trunk like an elephant, and a tail like a cow, in short, people don't feel very good about tapirs - "Tapirs are dangerous!" It can peel you alive with its retractable nose! ”

On the eve of Mother's Day 2020, Ma Shark took a Vlog about her mother, and at the beginning of the video, she introduced the story of the tapir. The tapir looks scary, and the horse shark's classmates are always afraid of her mother. From childhood to adulthood, my mother was the absolutely strong person in the family, and the ending of all conflicts always ended with the crying of the horse shark, and the mother "never looked back".

▲ Screenshot of "Mother's Day Vlog".

As a teenager, Shark Shark secretly vowed not to be influenced by her mother again, and that she would not be as strong as her mother. In her video diary, she captures a lot of images of herself being vulnerable and sad – she is probably the blogger who cries the most on camera.

But are tapirs really that scary? According to a cute legend, in order to improve people's impression of tapirs, a breeder named "Matola" decided to throw a birthday party for tapirs every year. It was only later discovered that this giant beast was gentle and cute.

Horse sharks also began to photograph their mothers for many people. Through the lens of capturing daily life that she is good at, her mother has also become a "rare animal" that is watched and loved by others.

In 2019, she made a video of the experience of "catching a junior for her mother", so she became popular on the Internet. In the video, everyone got to know Ma Shark's mother - Mr. Luo, a "giantess of steel" who loves beauty, is mean, confident, and likes to walk the catwalk.

▲Screenshot of "Mother's Day Vlog" in Figure 1, courtesy of the interviewee in Figure 2

But nothing has changed, and true reconciliation has never appeared. They both seem to accept the fact that they can't change each other in this life. It's just that understanding her mother is the only way for every daughter to become herself.

Liberation from the powerful maternity

During the Spring Festival of 2019, on the third day of going home, my mother complained to Ma Shark: Dad cheated. She was trying to take a Vlog when she picked up her camera and started recording.

After listening to her mother's description of "Little Three", Ma Shark decided to find "Little Three" and detect this "cheating". The audience also sees the cross-section of her parents' marriage through the suspense she sets.

▲ Screenshot of "My Mother's First Lovelorn".

In the video, the "little three" did not appear in the end, and there was no imaginary bloody plot. But the audience became deeply interested in the woman called "Teacher Luo" and her postmodern life, and the film made Ma Shark's social platform account gain fans overnight.

It seems to have laid the foundation for the style of horse shark shark shooting documentary video. She's a somewhat detached onlooker, but because of this onlooker's perspective, her videos take on a deep sense of humor.

When I was a child, my parents often quarreled, and Ma Shark didn't dare to fall asleep, for fear that they would wake up the next day and they would divorce. When she grew up, she began to think: why do they quarrel over trivial things? In order not to be involved in the emotions of her parents, in order to be alone, she has a kind of observation mentality of detachment from everything.

▲ Screenshot of "My Mother's First Lovelorn".

Withdrawal is also her way of surviving from her mother's absolute strength. Mom is a typical Sichuan-Chongqing woman: tough and never admits defeat. In the words of the horse shark, she is a "giantess of steel". If home is like a galaxy, then Mother is the radiant star in the family, so sometimes, her light will inevitably burn other creatures in the family.

"Ms. Luo" does not allow others to act against her will, and her excellent language output ability is her strong weapon. Normally, the horse shark chooses to "go in the left ear and out the right ear", but more often than not, she will always lose the battle and end up crying. The content of the conflict is all small things, such as the summer after the college entrance examination, my mother still requires Ma Shark not to get up more than 8 o'clock and sleep for an extra hour or two.

"With her, I'm always on an emotional rollercoaster." My father, on the other hand, was "fragile as a baby" and sometimes seemed to have lost his autonomy, so Ms. Luo was able to "suddenly show her glorious tolerance and make my father feel like he was back in his mother's body."

Over the years, Mom and Dad have struck a balance in this relationship. Dad would give Ms. Luo a backpack when she went out, and would also drink a glass of wine when Ms. Luo needed to show a happy family. His presence is low and he is not very expressive. Rather than worrying about things at home, he is more accustomed to sticking a knife in his friend's ribs outside. Ma Shark felt that perhaps he had slowly given up on participating in big and small decisions under his mother's strength, and finally simply quit any field where he had to take responsibility. He didn't quite know what his daughter was doing, and he couldn't remember what boyfriends she had talked to.

▲ Screenshot of "My Mother's First Lovelorn".

To some extent, such a relationship is also the result of Ms. Luo's will. Ms. Luo always mentioned the "ex-boyfriend" she looked up to, but she finally chose a "man who is not worthy of me", so that he would be kind to her with all his heart.

The father "lay flat", but the little girl Ma Shark grew up, and she had wings to escape from her mother. After the college entrance examination, Ma Shark flew to Beijing, and she felt that she had regained her freedom in life.

Later, the time between mother and daughter to see each other became less and less. When arguing, the horse shark will pick up the phone, book the ticket, and leave immediately.

A mother's love is conditional

But another version of the story is, "She's more reluctant to contact me" – says Ma Shark. After graduation, Ma Shark did not embark on the life path that his mother expected - there was no "iron rice bowl", and he did not get married and have children. For a long time, my mother did not take the initiative to contact Ma Shark, and she did not even send a text message for a year. "She can't control me anyway, and I can't starve to death, so she doesn't care so much about my life."

"Mother's love is conditional." Since childhood, Ma Shark has known that the premise of a mother's love is that "you must obey her will". When she grew up, this requirement became "everything must conform to her three views".

When he was younger, his parents sent the shark shark to his grandmother's house, who lived in another city. This state was intermittent and lasted until she was in the second grade of elementary school. One day, Ma Shark was at her grandmother's house, and when she turned her head and saw the "strange aunt" behind her, she couldn't recognize it, and Ms. Luo reminded her: "I'm my mother." ”

Ms. Luo is not the typical East Asian mother who sacrifices herself and dedicates herself to her family. The corners of her mouth are always slightly upturned, as if she is ready to sneer at the world. In a way, she did earn dignity for herself through hard work. She went to university and became a "literate person". She also strives to be a respectable teacher, and parents have a high opinion of her.

When she was a child, in the eyes of Ma Shark, Ms. Luo was a "great mother image". Because she is always so strong and can always solve any situation quickly. For a long time, the horse shark shark worshipped the strength of the mother. Now, the horse shark has learned that this is called "Mu Qiang" - thinking that strength and perseverance can solve any problem, and it is never allowed to show vulnerability.

But the "Iron Giantess" also has vulnerability and loneliness. Ms. Luo was born in a family with many children, the third in line, and is a transparent person caught in the middle. In an era when material conditions are relatively scarce, she needs to compete for resources for her own growth, and she is inevitably suppressed for this. Perhaps, this is the reason why Ms. Luo always wants to prove her presence and be the center of attention.

Until now, the struggle between mother and daughter has been endless. I usually play mahjong with my relatives, and once my mother loses, she always chatters when she comes home - not because she lost money, but because she "lost".

Ma Shark said that her mother, who seemed to be very strong, was actually "very dependent on her family, and she was afraid of being abandoned by her family". In her film "How I Became My Relative's Muse", her mother broke down and cried while video chatting with her. Relatives commented that the horse shark shark was "very pitiful" and "not married, did not have children", which made the mother especially sad - she seemed to have been abandoned by the "organization".

▲ Screenshot of "How I Became My Relative's Muse".

seems to be a strong mother, but she is still bound by the expectations of her original family. Until now, she has to continue to give a lot to her family in order to be loved and recognized. The love she has received since she was a child is also conditional. When she was growing up, Ms. Luo didn't have much "resources", but as an "older sister", she had to work to earn money to support the family, and she had to sacrifice her study time to take care of her younger brother. This is something that the horse shark shark did not understand until a long time later.

In the process of growing up in the horse shark, there seem to be two forces: one comes from dependence, she envies her mother for being so strong and carrying everything by herself; The other comes from escaping, she wants to get rid of her mother's shadow. So later, she allowed herself to write sad and fragile things, as if this was the only way to "heal herself."

▲ "Grid"

Random Fluctuations Editor / Ma Shark Shark wrote an article in the magazine book "How to Edit This Fight Between Me and My Mother"

Beijing United Publishing Company, 2024-2

As the horse shark slowly becomes a mature adult, the aura of that "great mother" fades little by little. Now, her mother in her eyes has completely become an "ordinary person".

There is a generation of desolation

Vlog, a form of media, has become a tool for horse sharks to reassemble the "mother's look" to some extent.

I don't know when Ms. Luo learned to take pictures of her life. Only then did Ma Shark realize that her mother's life seemed to be richer than she imagined. In the video, Ms. Luo is dressed as a flight attendant and walks the catwalk with other ladies pushing suitcases at the train station. Another time, Ms. Luo and her sisters went to the countryside to pick oranges, and the camera showed a pompous friendship.

"There's a strange beauty to those images." The horse shark shark was shocked by this. The audience also pieced together a "Teacher Luo" who loves beauty, is confident, likes to compete with everyone, loves catwalks, and dreams of being a flight attendant from those Vlogs

▲Screenshot of "Teacher Luo's Quotations: Dream Chapter".

Ms. Luo's expressions often have surprising rhythms and poetry. Regarding her husband, she said, "There are still good people in the world, but that's not my husband"; Regarding loneliness, she said, "Like our family, there are many birds and horses' hooves, and one person is at home, which is casual, but it is also very lonely, and no one speaks."

The "Iron Giantess" is bound to be lonely. At the end of "My Mother's First Broken Love", Ms. Luo suddenly walked a show in the square alone, she held her head high, her hands on her waist, walking with the wind, lonely and proud.

▲ Screenshot of "My Mother's First Lovelorn".

When she was a child, in order to survive, Ms. Luo turned off some of her senses and numbed her emotions so that she could solve things as soon as possible. These experiences have made her a "very intolerant" person – and it is difficult for her to change her mind. Ma Shark's later job choice was something that his mother couldn't understand. Ms. Luo is still pricked by relatives and friends from time to time, believing that her daughter is a "failure".

Ma Shark Shark has long accepted this matter, and she will not force her mother's acceptance and approval. After becoming a Vlog blogger who is loved by many people, her relationship with her mother has not changed. But she seems to see some of her mother's strengths - "she is real", and she will not change her own opinion just because someone praises her on the Internet.

In the spring of 2021, because of a shooting plan, the mother and daughter met for the first time after more than two years. Ma Shark took her mother to see the light show, and the lights in the exhibition hall were brilliant and blurry, and everything was very surreal. She and her mother chatted indiscriminately: the future universe may look like this. Ma Shark Shark and Ms. Luo both looked happy.

They wore retro hats that appeared in fairy tales, and the light flowed on their faces, everything was extremely distorted, but at the same time there was another feeling - stripped of all kinds of external conditions, everything was extraordinarily real.

The horse shark couldn't help but cry. At that moment, the huge quarrels in the family seemed to disappear, and the tense relationship was gone. Putting aside all the realities, she felt that at that moment, she was very close to her mother.

▲ Screenshot of "How to Stay Strong While Traveling with Mom".

Contents: Lau Che Tsai

Editor: Felicia

Typesetting: Yang Panpan

Caption: Courtesy of the interviewee

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